Jake1992 wrote:I'm no expert on radars and understand that fixed arrays seem to be the way most are going but artisan can't be that bad as it's also been fitted to the QEs. A rotating array can still be up there with the best as shown with sampsons that if it gets its BMD upgrade will still be one of the best in the world.
Artisan being fitted to the QE has no bearing on its quality. For one, the QE was originally specced to have a Sampson, but then budget demanded it be reduced to just an Artisan. The QE also has the S-1850M for its general long rang work. Artisan is purely a supplementary radar.
It unfortunately is not very future proofed. It's still a mechanical radar, not PESA (which was the standard some time ago) or AESA (which is the standard right now), while the 30 RPM of its rotary function leaves many areas of the sky blind for 2 seconds at a time. Thats a huge drop in awareness, compared to fixed arrays that just persistently display on a real time basis. The reason that Sampson covers this is it is a dual facing radar on a wide face, meaning that it has negligable time "off watch". Artisan does not possess this, as it was designed to be a budget radar to give appropriate coverage to non-escorts and to the Type 23's, due to their inability to mount a larger one. It's not a high end frigate radar, and really should never have been set for the Type 26 as it is right now. ANy batch 2 should replace it as a matter of absolute priority to something more modern. The FTI has shown you can fit powerful radars on only a 4,000 ton ship after all.
It's a previous generation naval radar type, mounted in a previous generation method, and simply is not that powerful even compared to more high end rotary radars like Herakles or Sampson.
Artisan is at the very end of its time as a noted radar. By 2027, it will be badly behind the remainder of the world, and as noted on Hunter, it has no Aegis connection compared to Hunter's CEAFAR.
Spinflight wrote:Well either all that above or.... you don't understand the reasons for Artisan.
Operational research boffins generally have this stuff nailed in my experience.
I'm guessing that it's something like a trade-off of being able to mount it higher than heavier and technically more capable systems.
There are solid state ones with high mounting as well.
Again, this is yet another instance of "the entire world seems to know something but because the UK alone isn't doing it that must mean the UK knows better" that perpetually leaves me sighing.
It's just the UK forces getting a budget option, nothing more complicated than that.
Spinflight wrote:Well either all that above or.... you don't understand the reasons for Artisan.
Operational research boffins generally have this stuff nailed in my experience.
I'm guessing that it's something like a trade-off of being able to mount it higher than heavier and technically more capable systems.
There are solid state ones with high mounting as well.
Again, this is yet another instance of "the entire world seems to know something but because the UK alone isn't doing it that must mean the UK knows better" that perpetually leaves me sighing.
It's just the UK forces getting a budget option, nothing more complicated than that.
I can see your point, a twin array ARTISAN ala SAMSON would be preferable to the current system. I don't really know enough about CEFAR to judge whether it would be a superior solution.
1: T26 getting orders from RAN is a great news. Among the 20B GBP whole-life program cost, 65-70% goes to Australia, and also significant portion to US (it is adopting AEGIS system, Mk45 gun, Mk.41 VLS, SM2, ESSM, and Harpoon Blk II+ SSM). "UK-portion" is not large, maybe 10-15% or so, including MT30 and Gearbox.
But, it means 2-3B GBP in 30 years, or 1-1.5B GBP within 15 years of building phase or 67-100M GBP per year. (I understand UK military export is ~1B GBP per year, so it is +7-10% annual). Good.
2: What will be the impact on RN's plan?
2-1: Moral of BAES will significantly improve, I wish: T26 design "proven" to be the "world best" (at least in ASW). Australian industry and labors are clear "rival" to UK's; which is building the similar-designed ship much better and cheaper? Direct comparison or "duel".
2-2: Cost reduction with commonality:
- the propulsion part are fairly common. It will save a lot on operation/maintenance point of view.
- design license: how many? not sure.
2-3: T31e
- There might be a stronger pressure to make "hull-9" of T26 there, 9 City vs 9 Hunts.
- But, this will not come with increased budget ("with RAN order, we can cut the T26 price further" is the common-sense, I guess).
- So, "why on earth we are planning to stand-up 2nd-escort-ship builder, by paying 1B GBP?" argument will come. As "2nd-escort-builder" argument is just an illusion (or a lie, UK lacks strong will to pay extra cost for it), anti-T31e argument will be more stronger.
- At least, "why not Leander, a BAES designed light-frigate? Why are UK throwing away 'world-leading BAES design capability' and buying a design from Denmark?" argument might prevail. (just my assumption).
<up to here, just an analysis>
<from here, a more "fantasy">
--> I think T31 will be more
- 5 Leander
- 1 more T26 (hull 9) and a few larger OPV. (sorry, I might be biased, because this is my favorite option)
than 5 Arrowhead 140. But this is just a guess.
In other words, Babcock must prepare stronger arguments for Arrowhead 140, NOW.
#Don't forget we are in the middle of MDP.
P.S. I agree 2 Arrowhead 140 will be very nice for RNZN. So, Babcock "shall" approach NZ and promote "another common-wealth (CW) common (lighter)-frigate program", for example. May include Malaysia, Pakistan, and even Chili and Portogee (not CW). But, for RNZN, 3 Leander will also not so bad, actually? It all depends on NZ government's idea.
donald_of_tokyo wrote:
P.S. I agree 2 Arrowhead 140 will be very nice for RNZN. So, Babcock "shall" approach NZ and promote "another common-wealth common (lighter)-frigate program", for example. But, 3 Leander will also not so bad, actually? It all depends on NZ government's idea.
its going to have to be extremely cheap for NZ to order more than 2 hulls, whilst NZ needs 4 hulls to perform all her commitments the government has long pockets and short arms
<from here, many "guess" >
But, it is also "based on Sampson's technology", which is AESA.
Definition of AESA is, to my understanding, radar emission pattern is controlled via "software". If Artisan 3D is using the similar antenna-modules as Sampson, Artisan being PESA "might" mean its control pattern in "hardware-coded" (may be LSI), and not software.
But, T26 with Artisan 3D is not a big problem, I think. Artisan 3D is a replacement for 996 radar, used in T23 and T42, Invincibles and others. They were replaced mid-life. So, for sure Artisan will be replaced mid-life.
Now with RAN Hunt class, a good candidate is CEAFAR 2. Or, RN can keep the "light-weight high-top" idea, and prepare, say, dual-surface GaN-based new AESA radar rotating 60 RPS --> providing 0.5 sec coverage. Or any 3D fixed AESA. It will be on ~2030, I guess?
Jake1992 wrote:I'm no expert on radars and understand that fixed arrays seem to be the way most are going but artisan can't be that bad as it's also been fitted to the QEs. A rotating array can still be up there with the best as shown with sampsons that if it gets its BMD upgrade will still be one of the best in the world.
Artisan being fitted to the QE has no bearing on its quality. For one, the QE was originally specced to have a Sampson, but then budget demanded it be reduced to just an Artisan. The QE also has the S-1850M for its general long rang work. Artisan is purely a supplementary radar.
It unfortunately is not very future proofed. It's still a mechanical radar, not PESA (which was the standard some time ago) or AESA (which is the standard right now), while the 30 RPM of its rotary function leaves many areas of the sky blind for 2 seconds at a time. Thats a huge drop in awareness, compared to fixed arrays that just persistently display on a real time basis. The reason that Sampson covers this is it is a dual facing radar on a wide face, meaning that it has negligable time "off watch". Artisan does not possess this, as it was designed to be a budget radar to give appropriate coverage to non-escorts and to the Type 23's, due to their inability to mount a larger one. It's not a high end frigate radar, and really should never have been set for the Type 26 as it is right now. ANy batch 2 should replace it as a matter of absolute priority to something more modern. The FTI has shown you can fit powerful radars on only a 4,000 ton ship after all.
It's a previous generation naval radar type, mounted in a previous generation method, and simply is not that powerful even compared to more high end rotary radars like Herakles or Sampson.
Artisan is at the very end of its time as a noted radar. By 2027, it will be badly behind the remainder of the world, and as noted on Hunter, it has no Aegis connection compared to Hunter's CEAFAR.
Thanks for the info, I never knew the QEs were meant to have sampsons it's a shame they didn't get it, I wonder if they will during a refit at some point
Wondering if any detailed top layout plan of Hunter exists confirming number of VLS cells etc and showing differences to Type 26 besides the different radars.
Mention has been made of 32 to 48 Mk 41 VLS cells fitted to Hunter, T26 has 24, two LWT ship launchers (Mk 32 SVTT?) for MU90, T26 has none. Presume 2 x 4 canister launchers for 'advanced' anti-ship missiles is the Kongsberg NSMs, or will Australia use the JSM, Kongsberg developed specifically to fit the F-35A weapons bay which Australia is buying, Navy Recognition reported that Kongsberg vertical launch JSM had been subject of a feasibility study in 2014, T26 has no capability/space to fit canister launchers for anti-ship missiles as weapons deck taken up by the very large mission bay to accommodate 10 TEUs, when not in use they could fit it out as a gym as they did on the Type 45 in space for additional VLS cells never fitted.
NickC wrote:Wondering if any detailed top layout plan of Hunter exists confirming number of VLS cells etc and showing differences to Type 26 besides the different radars.
Mention has been made of 32 to 48 Mk 41 VLS cells fitted to Hunter, T26 has 24, two LWT ship launchers (Mk 32 SVTT?) for MU90, T26 has none. Presume 2 x 4 canister launchers for 'advanced' anti-ship missiles is the Kongsberg NSMs, or will Australia use the JSM, Kongsberg developed specifically to fit the F-35A weapons bay which Australia is buying, Navy Recognition reported that Kongsberg vertical launch JSM had been subject of a feasibility study in 2014, T26 has no capability/space to fit canister launchers for anti-ship missiles as weapons deck taken up by the very large mission bay to accommodate 10 TEUs, when not in use they could fit it out as a gym as they did on the Type 45 in space for additional VLS cells never fitted.
City class -
24 mk41s
48 CAMM silos ( 24 front, 24 mid ship )
Hunter class -
32 mk41s
8 canister launchers
2 LWT tubes
I believe the reason there is no space for canisters on the city class has nothing to do with the mission bay but the fact that where they are on the hunter class is where the mid ship CAMM silos are on the city class
donald_of_tokyo, Given the “export success” of the T26, I agree it shakes things up a bit. Firstly, what it highlights is that whilst a design and kit (engines, weapons, systems etc) are exportable, the market for building the hull is likely to be small. Either people will want to buy their own or they can build it cheaper elsewhere.
In my view we should be:
- building more T26s to get a lower unit cost for the RN
- invest in R&D for add-ons to the T26, which will be export success.
- design a lite T26 which would open markets such as NZ
- design the best MHPC Sloop in the world which will drive future design and system export.
- focus Babcock (Appledore) on building these Sloops for the RN, with perhaps fitting out done in Pompy.
”We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." - Lord Palmerston
RetroSicotte wrote:Artisan being fitted to the QE has no bearing on its quality. For one, the QE was originally specced to have a Sampson, but then budget demanded it be reduced to just an Artisan. The QE also has the S-1850M for its general long rang work. Artisan is purely a supplementary radar.
It unfortunately is not very future proofed. It's still a mechanical radar, not PESA (which was the standard some time ago) or AESA (which is the standard right now), while the 30 RPM of its rotary function leaves many areas of the sky blind for 2 seconds at a time. Thats a huge drop in awareness, compared to fixed arrays that just persistently display on a real time basis. The reason that Sampson covers this is it is a dual facing radar on a wide face, meaning that it has negligable time "off watch". Artisan does not possess this, as it was designed to be a budget radar to give appropriate coverage to non-escorts and to the Type 23's, due to their inability to mount a larger one. It's not a high end frigate radar, and really should never have been set for the Type 26 as it is right now. ANy batch 2 should replace it as a matter of absolute priority to something more modern. The FTI has shown you can fit powerful radars on only a 4,000 ton ship after all.
It's a previous generation naval radar type, mounted in a previous generation method, and simply is not that powerful even compared to more high end rotary radars like Herakles or Sampson.
Artisan is at the very end of its time as a noted radar. By 2027, it will be badly behind the remainder of the world, and as noted on Hunter, it has no Aegis connection compared to Hunter's CEAFAR.
Artisan is a mechanical/PESA hybrid and can perform many features of AESA radars - volume scanning, beam forming, jamming etc. Its a mechanical azimuth, electronic elevation 3D search/track set with thermal imaging. The relationship with SAMPSON and the programme from which that was spawned (MESAR2) is the processing and it uses roughly 85% of the same code.
SAMPSON was never proposed for QEC. SAMPSON is a specialized radar for long range and BMD detection - it would not be fit for purpose on a carrier without any long range missiles - completely different function.
I wouldn't get too hung up on the technology but rather the maturity of the design and the end-to-end capability. Artisan is the most advanced medium range rotating radar - of which there are many in this field. I have no problem with Artisan being used on T26.
Repulse wrote:donald_of_tokyo, Given the “export success” of the T26, I agree it shakes things up a bit. Firstly, what it highlights is that whilst a design and kit (engines, weapons, systems etc) are exportable, the market for building the hull is likely to be small. Either people will want to buy their own or they can build it cheaper elsewhere.
In my view we should be:
- building more T26s to get a lower unit cost for the RN
- invest in R&D for add-ons to the T26, which will be export success.
- design a lite T26 which would open markets such as NZ
- design the best MHPC Sloop in the world which will drive future design and system export.
- focus Babcock (Appledore) on building these Sloops for the RN, with perhaps fitting out done in Pompy.
that's the common-sense way to do it, but how much has ben spent already on T31-e these are all sunk cost now, reminds me of the $$$ in the QEC program.
R686, hopefully not as much as wasted on the “cats and flaps debacle”, and I think some of the design concepts could be reused, especially as I’d see these MHPC Sloops being able to be forward based, RAS capable, and have a self defence capability in excess of the B2 Rivers.
For the T26 lite design (not build for the RN), it would be a good time to get one of the BAE design team to knock up a PowerPoint of a simpler design, reducing system, engine, crew cost whilst keeping differentiator features such as the Mission Bay.
”We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." - Lord Palmerston
It cant be too bad to go max 200 nm range and track about 800 targets and fast tennis balls .not Too shabby really , not sure the range track capabilities of ceafar and fremm frigates french/ italian radars altho they alot more expensive so must be better
I am still working it all out at this time but I will just throw out what I have up to now. It is a bit fantasy
Take the 1.25 billion for Type 31 and build 8 Venari 100 to 105 meter ships best you can for 150 million i.e as quite as you can for the money this will cost 1.2 billion with the 500 million left buy
8 x Sea Giraffe 3D radars 11 million each = 88 million ( price from Philippines deal 2 x sets 25 million dollars with support package)
6 x CAPTAS-2 sonar = 69 million ( price taken from Malaysian deal price 90 million dollars)
8 x 1 57mm + 2 30mm = 60 million
this where I have got so far there is 217 million left in the pot and I would be looking to take the MHPC money and build 10 to 12 more ships plus the MCM kits
The performance of a radar is driven by the ability of the system to pick out the desirable signals from the background clutter. Some of this ability is hardware related, but a lot is software. This is where Artisan and Sampson excel. Their signal processing is world leading.
RetroSicotte wrote:- Full on 32+ Mk41 silos
- Vastly superior radar to Artisan
- Torpedo launchers as standard, still capable of ASROC
- Aegis connectivity
- Thus capability to use SM-6 with its datalinked OTH mode
- In addition to the Type 26s own capabilities as a hull
Not to mention a 9th ship.
The Hunter class is honestly what the City class ought to have been, with some slight equivilence changes (CAMM instead of ESSM for example).
If you mean a general purpose frigate, then i disagree. It's apples to oranges at this point in time given what both operators intend to do with these ships. Hunter's spec is built around a unique Australian requirement, as the City's spec is built to ours. It's not a question of more or less capable, it's a question of intended use - each design reflecting what the respective operator wants to do with the ship.
Given that we intend to operate the T26 almost exclusively in the ASW role (no bad thing to my mind) the only point on which there is ground for argument is the lack of offensive ASW capability on the City class beyond its helicopter (at present).
Also, why all the present cynicism over Artisan, not so long ago it was widely heralded (by almost all on here, and elsewhere) as one of the best new additions to the fleet since sliced bread? There is no reason to believe that it is any less capable now than it was then, or that any of its promise was overhyped.
Artisan is formidable in its class and, to my mind, perfectly suited to the T26 and its role within the Royal Navy.
inch wrote:It cant be too bad to go max 200 nm range and track about 800 targets and fast tennis balls .not Too shabby really , not sure the range track capabilities of ceafar and fremm frigates french/ italian radars altho they alot more expensive so must be better
Kilometres are the units of distance you’re after there, not Nautical Miles!
The other radars you mention are a leap in capability above Artisan, a medium range air surveillance radar, but also I imagine a leap in cost. There are some nice benefits with an AESA, but you get what you pay for.
CAMM doesn’t need a dedicated Fire Control capability, opening up high update rate surveillance radars as the guidance system, Artisan and Giraffe respectively for RN and Army. Not sure about other CAMM operators.
It will be knocking on when the T26 hits the water, but a lot can be done with software updates.
The main impact for me is removing non CAMM AAW options for going in the launcher, so depends how much you value that as an upgrade path.
Considering the problems getting the class going in the first place and AAW not being a primary task, staying with an in house product makes sense.
Just as an aside can someone tell me where the two ship-mounted torpedo tubes are to be located on the Australian vessels?
All the other weapon changes appear to be straight swaps: Front CAMM silos out, more Mk 41 silos in; midships CAMM out, anti-ship box launchers in. I’m just not sure where they’ve squeezed the torpedo tubes.
matt00773 wrote:Artisan is a mechanical/PESA hybrid and can perform many features of AESA radars - volume scanning, beam forming, jamming etc.
So exactly as I said, it's not an AESA, which is the current standard. And this ship is for 2027 with a mechanical radar.
Its a mechanical azimuth, electronic elevation 3D search/track set with thermal imaging. The relationship with SAMPSON and the programme from which that was spawned (MESAR2) is the processing and it uses roughly 85% of the same code.
None of this actually states its quality, those are standard features of radars a decade old at this point. It is nothing special for having them.
I wouldn't get too hung up on the technology but rather the maturity of the design and the end-to-end capability. Artisan is the most advanced medium range rotating radar - of which there are many in this field. I have no problem with Artisan being used on T26.
It most definitely is not the most advanced, not with SMART-S, Herakles etc on the market. As for the "maturty of design", it's hardly the most mature in its class. Other radars have been using higher end technology, and for longer.
It was very clearly a budget option, it had to be what it is to match the old Type 23s layout, and was considered a passable radar for things like amphibs and a secondary support on a carrier.
To try and claim that Artisan is superior to things like the AESA version of EMPAR, APAR, CEAFAR, SPY-3, Seafire is just being blind to a legitimate issue. There is a reason why everyone worldwide is getting radars like these already, let alone by 2027.
Yet again, I find myself in the position of reminding people that if literally every other major navy in the world is doing something then its a good damn hint that its something that has been defined as a good idea. The UK is the only major nautical nation in the world still using mechanical radar on its prime escort into the 2030s at current. That does not mean the UK just "knows better". I feel like I have to repeat this every other week on there sometimes.
A discourse on my limited understanding of radar, stand to be corrected.
The most common radars operate in the microwave part of the spectrum, most are in the gigahertz range. In general, signals in this part of the spectrum are described as line of sight. A mechanically rotating, electronically stabilized antenna is usually the lightest suitable for installation at heights high above the waterline, near or at the top of ship masts to give the best surface range. Radar microwaves in gigahertz range is lower in frequency than light (light is an EM wave), microwaves are refracted a little more than visible light. The radar horizon is therefore a little further than the visual horizon. The exact amount depends on atmospheric conditions, but is approximately 8 - 10% further than the visual horizon, vital in early detection of sea skimming anti-ship missiles and normally use X-band for better discrimination.
Another factor that affects radar is that the signal must reflect off the target and make it back to the radar receiver. The strength of a reflected signal is very weak at great range, and is further attenuated on the trip back due to path losses and the inverse square law. Depending on the exact circumstances of the radar, the target and the atmospheric conditions, a radar signal will be able to be received at a greater distance than it is able to detect a target. The rule of thumb is its possible to detect an enemy radar at about 1/4 to 1/3 greater range than the max. radar detection range. That's why in the old days of the cold war era EMCON was widely practised as your radar made a great homing beacon for anti-radar missiles, MOD sadly never funded a replacement for ALARM.
Never understood why RN never installed an LPIR, low-probability-of-intercept radars or EO/IR on Type 26, the Dutch Navy Karel Doorman frigates use the Thales Scout low output power which makes the system ideal for cover operations in hostile environments where radar silence is required. Most ESM receivers using conventional interception techniques cannot efficiently detect and identify LPI radars. These radars have the ability to vary power output, utilize a wide operational bandwidth, frequency agility, antenna side lobe reduction, and advanced scan patterns to effectively hide their emissions in the background radiation clutter. A measure of the difficulty is that USN awarded a $1B contract to Raytheon contract to develop an X-band Next Generation Jammer and 15 engineering models for the EA-18G, total R&D planned for four bands of jammers currently budgeted at $4B.
In volume search mode for a rotating radar it means the radar is spinning and sending out pulses at regular intervals to scan the whole hemisphere, for a fixed panel array it’s using its beam-steering capabilities to point beams over a whole region of space in some amount of time and cannot point beams over a certain region as fast as you want due to limited dwell time. A radar sends out a pulse, needs to wait for a certain amount of time for any returns to come back, the maximum amount of time the radar will wait is called the 'instrumented' range of the radar.
If instrumented range is 100 miles it needs to be randomly searching that region of space where the target is, exactly when that target is at 100 miles, a radar does not generates a track for every blip that the signal processor’s detect as would have too many false alarms and generate false tracks. Radars will wait for 2, 3, 5, or even more confirmation detections before actually declaring a track so very rare that you will detect exactly at instrumented range.
In a track mode, the radar knows there is a target, if the radar has detected it the radar will use a smaller beam and point that beam exactly at the target. It can get more accurate measurements, have better signal-to-noise, and it can continue to direct pulses towards that target at a high rate and adjust it’s 'wait' time to the range it knows that the target is at and a radar can track a target beyond it’s instrumented range, particularly if the target has a larger radar cross section.
The Multi-function Electronically Scanned Adaptive Radar (MESAR) programme, the basis of Sampson pioneered the development of Transmit/Receive Modules,T/R M, digital adaptive beamforming and real time radar, radar control all of which were successfully demonstrated in trials. (A side note, at the recent SNA 2018 LM were advocating updating the Tico and Burke SPY-1 radars with their GaN TR/Ms, which use dual polarisation, polarimetric radars transmit and receive on both horizontal and vertical axis, LM said that TR/Ms would allow enable them to do away with internal the SPY-1 waveguides).
Samson/Artisan use S-band, advantages over X-band is that the attenuation at the longer wave length gives less diffraction in the breaking up of the EM wave at the cost of larger antennas and range resolution as its roughly inversely proportional to bandwidth and bandwidth is roughly proportional to frequency, it would be expected that an X-band radar (about 9-10 Ghz) would have a range resolution roughly three times better than an S-band radar (2-4 GHz). (Frequencies much higher than X-band are precluded by atmospheric effects, snow and rain). Thus while an X-band radar might achieve a range resolution of 150-250 mm, an S-band radar might achieve only 500-1000 mm, depending on the choice of frequency with S-band.
The major advance in radar since MESAR/Sampson/Artisan is the introduction is gallium nitride, GaN, silicon replacing gallium arsenide, GaAs T/R Ms. GaN have larger output power theoretically 10-50 times. GaN has a higher breakdown voltage compared to GaAs, thus it can take more electric power and convert into EM power. SAAB GlobalEye is GaN based said to have 70% more range than the previous GaAs version. The two principle advantages of GaN antennas are the ability to run more efficiently thereby consuming less power and cooling resources for a given performance (smaller power and thermal footprint for a fixed performance) or the ability to extract a lot more performance by addressing the power and thermal capacity. One industry executive said you can get 50 percent more range, search five times as large a volume, or improve discrimination.
A USN quote which I find slightly contradictory "Navy officials explained that radar sensitivity scales as a cube of the size of the radar aperture. While improvements can also be made to the transmit/receive modules that emit the radar signal, Navy officials stated that this is a linear (not cubic) relationship and only adds marginal capability on the order of +1 or 2 dB."
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
RetroSicotte wrote:
Yet again, I find myself in the position of reminding people that if literally every other major navy in the world is doing something then its a good damn hint that its something that has been defined as a good idea. The UK is the only major nautical nation in the world still using mechanical radar on its prime escort into the 2030s at current. That does not mean the UK just "knows better". I feel like I have to repeat this every other week on there sometimes.
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…
